Online travel agency Hotels.com has agreed to improve access for disabled travelers as part of a settlement of a lawsuit that alleged it refused to guarantee reservations for rooms that are wheelchair accessible.
Hotels.com, a subsidiary of Expedia.com of Bellevue, Wash., will gather information about hotels’ accessibility features and incorporate it into its Web sites later this year, according to The San Franscisco Chronicle. Travelers will be able to make special requests online to book rooms accessible to the disabled, and customer service representatives will be trained to give those requests individual attention.
Despite making reservations online and contacting Hotels.com’s customer-care representatives, two plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, which was filed in Oakland, Calif., say they traveled often with a dance troupe for people with and without disabilities and found that wheelchair-accessible rooms weren’t guaranteed.
In a statement, Hotels.com said it is “working carefully to implement changes to our sites, which will enable travelers to search and book properties which meet their accessibility requirements.”
Read more at the San Fransciso Chronicle
